Injuries have restricted the Commonwealth super- middleweight champion to just July’s six-round stoppage win over Francisco Sierra this year.

Groves, 24, missed out on a world title shot in May when he had to pull out of facing Germany’s WBO king Robert Stieglitz with a nose injury.

The unbeaten Londoner then suffered a cut against Sierra that ruled him out of defending his British title against Kenny Anderson in the autumn and he was stripped of the belt.

But Groves hopes claiming the scalp of Jamaican Johnson, 43, who took Nottingham’s IBF world champion Carl Froch the distance a year ago, will put him back on track.

Johnson’s only stoppage loss in 70 fights was against Bernard Hopkins for the world middleweight title in 1997.

Groves said: “If I beat Johnson 2012 will not be a let down but a year of transition to the next level and I will have achieved what I wanted to do at the start of the year.

“After beating Glen Johnson and making the move to world-class boxing I think I can look back on 2012 and say I missed out on a world title fight because of an injury but I can be considered a world-class fighter.”

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